Twitter on Wednesday announced the expansion of ‘Safety Mode,’ to more users across English-speaking countries. The feature is aimed at helping users limit “unwelcome interactions” on their feed by imposing an automatic seven-day block on accounts that use potentially harmful language including unwanted, spammy, or abusive replies.
Twitter opens access to anti-abuse ‘Safety Mode,’ tool for millions of users
Launched in September 2021 to a small group of users, Safety Mode allows users to reduce disruptive interactions. When the feature is turned on in Settings, Twitter’s systems will “assess the likelihood of a negative engagement by considering both the Tweet’s content and the relationship between the Tweet author and replied.”
If Twitter’s technology deems a user to be harmful or uninvited, they will be auto blocked so they will temporarily be unable to follow your account, see your Tweets, or send you Direct Messages for seven days. Note that Safety Mode does take existing relationships into account so users you follow or frequently interact with will not be auto blocked.
Twitter Safety Team on Wednesday tweeted about the expansion of the feature. The micro-blogging giant said it is expanding the beta to several English-speaking markets to gain more feedback and insight before rolling Safety Mode out to all users.
According to a report from The Verge, Twitter spokesperson Tatiana Britt said around 50 percent of users in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States will have access to the beta version of Safety Mode.
“Since the initial rollout of the Safety Mode beta in September, we’ve learned that some people want help identifying unwelcome interactions,” Britt said. “For this reason, our technology will now proactively identify potentially harmful or uninvited replies, and prompt people in the beta to consider enabling Safety Mode. This update further reduces the burden on people dealing with unwelcome interactions.”
While we do not know when this feature will be rolled out more broadly, Safety Mode seems like a useful way to tackle harassment on the platform.
Read more:
